Editorials

Which way for CAB

For reasons it will know best, but all others can only guess, the BJP government at the Centre seems determined to get the Citizenship Amendment Bill-2016 introduced and passed by the Rajya Sabha. The Bill, it will be recalled, has already been passed by the Lok Sabha where the BJP enjoys an overwhelming majority and only awaits the Rajya Sabha nod before it become law. This is proving a hurdle for the BJP does not command a majority in this House. If and when the Rajya Sabha passes it, the Bill will await the President’s assent, but since the President acts on the advice of the Union cabinet, it is a foregone conclusion this last lap will be no obstacle at all. The Bill was expected to be introduced in the Rajya Sabha today, but amidst strong oppositions from the Congress and other parties over other Bills listed ahead of it, this could not be accomplished today. It remains to be seen if this will happen tomorrow, the last day of the Interim Budget Session, if it does not, in all likelihood the Bill will lapse, as the Lok Sabha alone passed it and the term of this Lok Sabha will be expiring in about two months, and a new Lok Sabha elected. But there is a way the Bill will not lapse. If the Bill is successfully introduced in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow, although it would most likely remain pending as a decision on its passage will be next to impossible so quickly, the President can still notify a joint sitting of the two Houses before the Lok Sabha is dissolved. This done, the Bill will remain alive and a voting on the Bill by a joint sitting of the new Lok Sabha after the election and the Rajya Sabha will be called upon to break the stalemate. This is to say, only if the BJP again fails to introduce the Bill in the Rajya Sabha tomorrow, the Bill will lapse. Thanks to the internet age and the knowledge power it universally introduced, these nuances of Parliamentary procedures are easily available for anybody who care to take the trouble to search deep enough.

The worries of the Northeast states, Manipur included, can hence receive a reprieve after tomorrow if the Bill fails to be introduced. But even if it is introduced and the President gets the time to notify a joint sitting within the next month or so, the immediacy of the worries would have recede considerably for the Bill can only be debated and voted after the new Lok Sabha is formed, and who knows what the new Lok Sabha will look like, or whether the BJP will at all be commanding the same number it does currently in the House. Given this situation, and the little time gained on account of the near impossibility of the Bill being passed immediately, it is perhaps time to sit back and reflect on what might have led the BJP to so urgently want such a law. Our hunch is, this has less to do with a genuine concern for Hindus and followers of other Hindu-aligned religions supposedly persecuted in countries neighbouring India, but about gaining a campaign handle in the forthcoming Lok Sabha election, just as it has done in the case of the Ram mandir issue. This suspicion gains credence given the fact that the list of religions does not include Muslims or followers of sects of the religion who too are supposedly equal victims of state persecution in these same countries. The idea seems to be to create a sharp polarisation between Hindus and Muslims, and then pose itself as the champions of the former in the hope that this would give the party an electoral advantage given the fact that India is an overwhelmingly Hindu majority country. In the same vein, if the passage of the Bill is opposed by any political party or parties, to portray those parties as standing against Hindu interest. Ignored in the process however is that not all Hindus believe in this false division, and on the other hand are opposed to making religion a tool of politics.

What about Manipur? Why is there this vehement public protest against the CAB and why is the government treating those who are protesting like they were being misled? If the government is genuinely convinced the CAB will be good for the future of the place, let them come out with a comprehensible and logically acceptable explanation how this will be so. And if on the other hand the government thinks the public’s apprehension is legitimate, why has it not made common cause with those opposing the Bill? If it does think the CAB poses a danger to future demographic balance of Manipur and therefore a threat to the stability to identities of small ethnic communities of the place, the government should find ways to make its strong dissent known to their central leaders. Or is there no space for dissenting voices within this party, just as it has been repeatedly demonstrated that the government here has no tolerance for dissent and criticism, even to the extent of throwing people in jail for frivolous non-cognizable affronts on the egos of those in the hot seats of state power.

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